The Magnates of Jingzhou (1)
Xiangyang County, Nanyang Commandery, Jing Province.
The seat of the Governor of Jingzhou had originally lain in Wuling Commandery, but ever since Liu Biao seized power and relocated his base of operations, the provincial seat had remained fixed at Xiangyang Castle.
Nanyang Commandery, linked on every side to one great city after another, its roads well kept and its traffic unimpeded, could be called nothing less than the heart of Jingzhou. With every geographic advantage piling one atop another, it had become the most densely populated region under heaven. And given that, it was only natural in a way that the gentry families with any real name to themselves in Nanyang were almost without exception wealthy—when the population ran that thick, skimming even a little off each commoner sent riches pouring down in streams.
There were indeed honest gentry who lived uprightly and bought the goodwill of the people, but there were just as certainly those who wrung the populace dry under one absurd pretext after another. ...And the gentry of the latter kind now had flames licking at their very heels.
A mansion prepared in secret somewhere in Jingzhou. Under the pretext of a banquet, men of distinctly unsettling aspect had gathered in one place and were trading words with one another.
"That old fellow who had the whole district around Fuyang County in his grip got hauled off by the General-in-Chief."
"He strutted about so sure of himself, insisting there was nothing on him anyone could pin—and in the end, he was the very first one taken in?"
The man who had spoken first nodded with a calm expression. "Given everything he's done up to now, I doubt he'll leave prison alive."
"Tsk tsk. However chaotic Jingzhou has been of late, that's no excuse—joining hands with a pack of bandits to plunder the very people they ruled was plain idiocy."
A gentryman nearby clicked his tongue, muttering that the old man had let the affair swell far too large.
Once those seated in their places had gone through one round of talk, information of every sort began circulating around the room as well.
"Weren't the ring smuggling salt out of Danshui County relieved of their necks wholesale as well?"
"Ah, I heard about that one too. A general named Wei Yan staged a surprise raid on the scene and dragged the lot of them in, or so they say."
A gentryman who had been reaping tidy profits off the smuggling drew a shaky breath.
"A lowborn woman who wouldn't have dared so much as meet my eyes in the old days... how dare she......"
A man who had been watching it all pressed a hand to his forehead.
"It's been barely a few days, and already everything's come apart this badly."
The former Governor of Jingzhou, Liu Biao, had been too drunk on playing emperor to bother with them—so long as the taxes arrived, he passed over everything without laying a finger on them. But no sooner had Liu Biao died and the General-in-Chief settled into the seat that ruled Jingzhou than he gathered up every scrap of intelligence and began tightening the noose: exposing corruption case after case, whittling down the gentry's authority, confiscating their fortunes. A few tried to coax him over with bribes, but it was a hopeless gambit. If anything, the attempts only drew the General-in-Chief's eye, and before long the bribe-senders had their fortunes seized and found themselves thrown into a cell.
Was the General-in-Chief's own ability simply that exceptional? Or was it the ability of those serving under him? These days he overlooked not even the tiniest irregularity, rooting out corruption and overhauling personnel on a massive scale—and the sheer speed with which he handled it all startled even them.
One of the gentry seated there spoke up.
"You've all noticed it too, haven't you? If we just keep letting the days slip by, every last one of us will be dragged away."
"...You're not wrong."
The gentry gathered here were no fools either. But even granting that they needed a countermeasure—just how, exactly, were they supposed to go about it? Raising open revolt against the General-in-Chief, who commanded the mightiest army under heaven, was suicide in the plainest sense of the word; and if they schemed to send assassins in secret instead, the figures guarding the General-in-Chief's person were the problem.
There was Lü Bu, called the Peerless Under Heaven, to say nothing of the general named Seo Yeo, who like a cub trailing its parents never left the General-in-Chief's side for a single hour. No one knew the details of that bodyguard's martial skill, but judging from the enormous sword she always carried slung across her back, it had to be a caliber of ability that mere assassins could never hope to overcome.
And beyond the two of them, word had it that generals named Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei led the General-in-Chief's bugok and stood watch over the building where he dwelt tight as a drum. For an assassin to succeed at the deed, he would first have to punch through the guards shielding this General-in-Chief. He would have to evade the surveillance of the generals all around, slip into the building unseen, somehow turn Lü Bu's gaze aside, and then dispose of the bodyguard general who never left the General-in-Chief's side—only then could the deed succeed.
...Was this how the assassins who once hunted the life of Qin Shi Huang felt? The gentryman, abruptly understanding the hearts of Jing Ke and the mighty strongman of Canghai, felt a dull throb settle into his skull. No—assassinating the Emperor would actually be easier. At least the Emperor does not keep the Peerless Under Heaven as her bodyguard general.
...
The gentry, unable to produce any countermeasure, floundered about and did nothing but watch one another's faces.
"Is there truly no way but that..."
At last, a man who had been observing the whole scene heaved out a sigh and spoke.
"What of this method?"
"Hm?"
The gentry turned their heads with faintly hopeful faces and looked at the man. With every gaze converging on him, he went on with a cautious air.
"Hear me out. This is something I came by some time ago, when an errand took me south of the Changjiang..."
And as the man's proposal unspooled, the mood among the gentry brightened before their very eyes—all of them thinking that this method, just maybe, might truly work.
The reorganization of the army was to be settled by Zhou Yu, to whom I had delegated the authority, so for my part I simply heard out the opinions around me and laid down the overall frame. Complicated matters like building up the navy or positioning the troops were far better handed directly to Zhou Yu, the very person who had put those ideas forward in the first place. With just this much done, she would tie up the loose ends herself once she returned from her leave. It would be blessing enough if, in my eagerness to try my hand at everything, I didn't barge in and wreck something for no good reason.
Concluding that the army reorganization was more or less finished, I moved straight on to the next task: just as I had mentioned to Lü Bu before, cracking the whip over the gentry.
I not only hauled out the ledgers kept at the administrative seat of the Governor of Jingzhou, but also loosed the soldiers to gather every last scrap of information on the surroundings. It went without saying that someone as hopeless with numbers as I am couldn't uncover corruption just by leafing through account books, so I received a little help from the people around me. ...In truth, not a little—a very great deal of it.
"I shall prove worthy of your expectations, my lord."
"Sure. Just like last time, we find the ones stuffing their own pockets, right?"
Zhuge Liang beamed at me as she always did, while Sima Yi wore a sulky expression. Shooting a sidelong glance at Zhuge Liang beside her, Sima Yi said,
"While I'm at it, I'll flatten that woman's nose—the one who's all glitter and no substance."
"That is, if you're capable of it."
Having watched that murderous clash of auras so many times now, I suppose I've grown used to it. Sima Yi glared at Zhuge Liang and growled out something vicious, and Zhuge Liang brushed the provocation aside as though it were nothing. The two of them took their seats at their respective desks and unrolled the bamboo slips piled before them with a dry rustle—then began skimming the contents at a speed that made me doubt they were truly reading at all. The pace was, frankly, astonishing. Perhaps her competitive spirit had caught fire, because Sima Yi was working through the documents far faster than usual. Zhuge Liang, this being her first time at the task, was harder to gauge.
Compared to those two, I was reading my slips at a caterpillar's crawl, so I showed the contents to Seo Yeo beside me instead.
"This one looks fine, doesn't it?"
When I held out the slip and asked, Seo Yeo studied what was written on it for a moment before answering.
"...I merely follow my lord's decision."
"You don't know, do you?"
...
Unable to lie to me, Seo Yeo simply held her silence. Honestly, at times like this a small falsehood would have done no harm—she really is unchanging. Though I suppose that, too, is one of her charms.
As the old tale of the Match for Ten Thousand tells it, someone once remarked that a general need only know how to write his own name.
...
And the one who had spat out those words was Xiang Yu, sitting right there before my eyes. To be fair, since raw strength alone wins no battle, the records do say she studied strategy and tactics as well—though apparently not in any great depth. Lü Bu was Lü Bu, but Seo Yeo wasn't exactly the type to rack her brains either. I let out a quiet laugh as I looked at her, and she, perhaps embarrassed, let her gaze slip away from mine.
Just then, the door burst open.
"What now? What are you all doing in here?"
Lü Bu, the Sky Piercer Halberd slung over her shoulder, tramped into the room.
I looked at her and spoke up.
"Ah—perfect timing, actually."
"Hm?"
"I'm going through all of this right now, checking whether anyone's been committing corruption."
"...So?"
A faintly puzzled look crossed Lü Bu's face.
"And it looks like you haven't got anything on your hands at the moment, so... could you help me out?"
"...Th-that's, well..."
At my words, Lü Bu wore an expression of flustered embarrassment much like Seo Yeo's. A short while later, she blurted out:
"...Should I... cheer you on or something, then?"
...
Now that was a Lü Bu answer if ever there was one.